A Letter Regarding the News and What it Means to Her
by fineontheoutside
Summary: Her mother left her with a letter explaining to her why she left.


To my dearest Midori,

I just want you to know that I love you. I really do. I'll be back one day for you and your father as soon as I can, I promise. Tell Saguru that it won't be long before I come back and that I've hidden a letter for him under Watson's cage. It'll be hard on him, though he'll refuse to admit it. I know you'll be strong. Be there for your father, he'll need the support, please take care of him while I'm gone. I'm sorry it's come to this; I wish I could say goodbye to you in person but it's not possible for me to wait until you come home from school. Just know that I love you and you'll constantly be on my mind while I'm away.

Now, I'm going to tell you a story. I wish for nothing more than to be able to tell you in person, but given the circumstances right now, it's out of the question. You're about to read a secret that's been incredibly well hidden for generations. I know you love mysteries. You always have. You grew up hearing Saguru's detective stories. I remember he used to read short stories about Sherlock Holmes to you on days you stayed home with the flu. But promise me this, you won't tell anyone about this mystery. Please Midori, you have to keep this a secret from your friends. The Kudos may be the only family that knows the story on the outside, and I'm fairly sure not even Conan would know it. Or at least I hope he doesn't. You can go to Auntie Ran and Uncle Shinichi if you need the support and Saguru won't be applicable. He'll be deep within his own thoughts after I leave, so please treat him gently.

Now, when I was seven, my mother died of an illness. She overworked herself and refused to rest until it was too late. Your grandfather, my father, became inconceivably depressed and began to bury himself in work. He was a police officer and there never was enough men working in his department so the extra hours he was willing to work was easily accepted into the office's schedule. The sudden transition was terribly difficult for me, as I felt like I had lost my father as well and my mother at the time. I cried an awful lot and my self-confidence evaporated as though I had misplaced it the day of my mother's funeral. I wallowed for almost a month, drowning myself in self pity. I was an absolute wreck, but I was lucky enough to have a friend who saved me. He mended my life back together with flowers and hidden concern. It was because of him I was able to harness the momentum in my life and make other friends and get into college.

I understand that you already knew this. I've told it to you before while your father was out getting groceries at Christmas time last year. So if you would, take a seat. Perhaps take Watson out of his cage and find some comfort in his soft down. There was more to that story, what I told you a year ago was barely a memory of everything that came after it.

You see, my friend, his name was Kuroba Kaito and he was a magician. Although you may never have heard his name, his father was quite the legend. Arguably, he was one of the world's greatest magicians. The reason your generation has never heard of Kuroba Toichi was because he died, a couple years after my mother did. We were all told that it was a magic trick gone wrong and it caused an explosion during one of his shows. It affected Kaito; his role model had died and of course, he never really got over it, but it also gave him even more reason to become the best magician there ever was. He was convinced that he was the man that would surpass Houdini. Now, it took me ten years to learn that his death was not an accident, but a well conceived murder, but I'll get back to that in a bit.

Kaito, the boy that saved me had broken just as I did years before. He spent a lot of time staring in the beginning. There, but not really there. He distanced himself from everyone and no one tried to close it. However he was never completely alone because I was there sitting next to him quietly as he coped. We were both lonely and I guess it was easier to be lonely together. We were always friends but I suppose we never really clicked until we had to each lose a parent. Of course, I might as well have lost a father the same day, but Kaito's mother left him behind just as your grandfather did to me.

Before then, I always saw Kuroba Chikage to be a strong woman. None of Kaito and Toichi's tricks seemed to faze her, no matter how dangerous. She was undeniably beautiful and she always, always had a pleasant smile on her face, but his mother fell into shock and grew to have difficulty to see her son after Toichi died, who every day, developed to look more and more like the ghost of her husband. She began to take frequent trips to America until Kaito was old enough to take care of himself before moving to New York. We were both almost parentless. The two of us grew up learning to support each other, confiding in each other because we had no one else. The world was filled but it was also empty. We learned to grow up and trust each other. And then one day, the world changed.

Kaito found a secret room behind his and uncovered a mystery on our last year of high school when we were seventeen. In that room, he unraveled lines of white suits, hats, and a glass monocle. There was an old jukebox there that would play records made by his dad explaining a death he predicted and his side job. I'm absolutely certain you know him. It was on the news just the other day actually, about a famous ruby in a museum in Wales. He's quite popular in people me and Saguru's age but everyone's at least heard of him. I used to hate him when I was your age because my father did too. Do you understand Midori?

My childhood friend followed after his father's steps and became the international thief 1412, better known as Kaitou Kid. The name changed from 1412 to KID when Kudo Yusaku, Conan's grandfather, wrote his name down hastily and was later misread years and years ago. I think it's rather amusing how the world is. Sometimes it seems overwhelmingly large and complicated, sometimes you realize how small and simple everything is. I guess people are like that too.

But he never told me; rather, he went out of his way to hide it from me. Kaito, who I grew up with, and even when I couldn't trust the world I could trust him, he lied to me. I hated Kid for stealing my inspector father even farther away from me. After we graduated, we started going out. I think deep inside I knew that he was Kid; I was just scared to know the truth. But there was no hiding the truth when I found a monocle with a black clover on it in his room one night. I wanted to think that it might've been a mistake but when I grabbed it off of his desk and asked for an explanation, he gave me these sad, defeated eyes and told me he couldn't offer me any that would satisfy me. He let me go. And I let him go. And I fell.

I was incredibly upset with him after that. I met Saguru on campus at the university in Tokyo that I attended. We knew each other from high school so it was nice to see a familiar face. Especially one that would distract me from such heartbreak I was suffering with. We began to do things together. At first it was simple, we'd meet at a café we were both fond of to study and then we began to catch a movie after we got our test results back. Before either of us noticed, we were holding hands and I fell in love with him. Of course, at first I was still desperately angry and in love with Kaito. The evening I found the monocle, I trashed ten years of our friendship over his mistake but Saguru did well with me regardless of my mood swings. We graduated college and we were still together and I felt incredibly blessed. I knew I loved Saguru, I still do now.

But one night, I was hit with the reality of Kaito once again and Saguru wasn't there to hold me and tell me it was going to be all right. I ran to a bar and drank myself into beautiful oblivion. You see, I hadn't seen Kaito for five years during that time and somehow I ran into him on that particular night. The world became small again and for that one night I fell into his arms and whispered that I missed him. I came back the next morning, having woken up in an empty bed in a hotel to Saguru and I cried to him. I openly admitted that I had made a mistake. I thought he was going to leave me right then, but he only kissed my nose and told me he'd never be the one to leave first. He got down on one knee right then and he promised me he'll always be there to support me through everything. And he did. He never left and he supported me through thick and thin. Even when he woke up one morning to find me a mess in the bathroom holding a pregnancy test that proved positive a week later.

Midori, I love you and Saguru does too. I'm not telling you this because I'm feeling bittersweet nostalgia about my past or anything. I'm over those days. Dear, I hope you understand from this letter what I'm trying to tell you. At first, I thought about aborting the baby. I never thought of myself to be strong enough to raise a child emotionally or financially, but Saguru convinced me he would support me and the infant as best he could and somehow, I decided to keep the child. Do you understand yet? I'm sorry I'm not here for you in person. I'm sorry I hadn't told you before or I hadn't asked Saguru to tell you in person opposed to a letter. I just felt it was better if you didn't know before know that your father wasn't biologically related and I couldn't put the pressure on him to tell you without me when I've already put so much stress on him right now. He loves you, Midori. Saguru loves you as much as he could; you really are his daughter as you are mine. I just hope you could forgive me for holding back on telling you until now.

Now, on the matter of why I'm not where you are. I didn't leave Saguru. I have full intentions on coming back and I hope to do so before the end of the month. I made a grocery list last night on the fridge. The check for the maid is on the counter. Watch over your father. As I mentioned before, your biological father was-is the Kaitou Kid. He's always been on the news every now and then. He'd cause a big uproar with a new heist in a new city and do some spectacular magic trick and when the media began to forget about him, he'd announce another heist. I always thought of him as a petty thief, nothing more than an elaborate conman. And I left that night, when I found the monocle back in the first few weeks of summer break before we went to separate universities, I left before asking him why.

When I met him in the bar seventeen years ago he looked older. Wiser but also tired and defeated. That night I poured out all of the questions that had aged in my heart since then. You see, he told me this story that started with his own dad. How he was a magician and the original Kaitou Kid and when the name was passed down to him, he learned about this red stone that his father was cursed to find. Kaito told me that it was the red stone that granted immortality and he had to find it before _they_ did. He never told me who they were, but from the way he talked you could tell that immortality is something that needs to be kept away from them. I was too in shock to ask him more that night, and in the morning he was gone, as was every trace of him meeting me. Almost.

It's been hard for me to deal with but I understand that Kaito is Kaito and because he is who he is, it really wasn't a choice. He's like that, determined and ambitious. He's going to find Pandora before he takes off the ridiculously flashy suit and settle down. I'm worried for him, you know. Kaito's only ever been the infamous phantom thief and when removes his monocle for the last time surrounded by crystallized shards of red, he won't know what to do next. Since seventeen, that was who Kaito was and when he and Kid are no longer one, he may not know who he is.

Yesterday on the news, there was a heist he announced in France tomorrow. Kaito left a note laced with words of thanks for his fans that supported him until the end. If he's declaring that heist to be his last, he must have confidence that the Rubis de Vie is Pandora.

I've left because Kaito, who never asked for help, will need support. I'm going to find him Midori, and I'm going to welcome Kuroba Kaito back from his double identity. I've known him for far too long to know that he needs to be told that everything is okay. I need to tell Kaito that I forgive him.

Stay strong and remember I love you.

With love,

Your mother, Aoko

_AN: Writing in first person is hard… Anyway, please leave a review!_


End file.
